An idea · Twentieth Century (to mid-century) · first attested 1942
The Absurd
The collision between our hunger for meaning and the universe's silence.
Camus's central category. The absurd is not in us, and not in the universe – it is in the relation between a meaning-seeking being and a universe that does not provide meaning. The absurd cannot be solved; it can only be lived. Suicide cheats it, and religion looks away; only lucid revolt can accept it.